When "Jeb!" Bush started campaigning for president, people starting asking, "Wait, was W the smart one?" Now the rest of the Republican candidates are causing people to ask, "Wait, is Trump the reasonable one?"

Wednesday night we will all get a chance to see the next round of the freak show. Who would have thought that Donald "Mexicans are rapists" Trump would stand out in the Republican field as the rational one? But consider this:

● Running second to Trump, Ben Carson wants to cut taxes on billionaires all the way to 10 percent, while requiring the poor to pay more. Along with the other Republican candidates, he denies the science behind climate change. Carson is the candidate who said, "Obamacare is really I think the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery. And it is in a way, it is slavery in a way..." He also proposes letting tax-dodging corporations hoarding more than $2 trillion outside of U.S. out of paying most of the up-to-$700-plus billion they owe.
● Scott Walker is now campaigning almost entirely on destroying unions.
● The Jeb Bush tax plan gives a (another) huge ($3.4 trillion) tax cut to billionaires and corporations.
● John Kasich closed half of Ohio's womens' health clinics, forced Ohio women to get ultrasounds before an abortion, forced Ohio rape counseling centers to not mention abortion and demands that Congress defund Planned Parenthood, saying this is all a "Christian moral imperative."
● Ted "Shut Down the Government" Cruz wants to shut down the government again over funding for Planned Parenthood. So does Bobby Jindal. So does Carly Fiorina.
● Even worse, Mike Huckabee would put the U.S. into default over the debt ceiling to defund Planned Parenthood. He would also give "due process" rights to fetuses.
● Carly Fiorina says "liberal politicians" caused California's terrible drought.

This could go on and on – you get the idea: These people are nuts. In this crowd, Donald "Laziness Is a Trait in Blacks" Trump stands out as the reasonable one. Consider this:

● Trump says CEO pay is too high, even "disgraceful," and his Republican voters love it.
● Trump says he was "strongly" against the Iraq war, and his Republican voters love it.
● Trump says cutting Social Security would not be fair to people who need it, and his Republican voters love it.
● Trump calls for raising taxes on hedge-fund managers, and his Republican voters love it.
● Trump is not blindly pro-"free trade" and has come out against the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and his Republican voters love it.
● Trump even says "single-payer" health care works elsewhere, and his Republican voters love it.
● Etc...

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All of these go against conservative orthodoxy – and have helped propel Trump into the lead.

Trump's Republican Base Rejects Conservative Ideology

During the first Republican debate, the moderators tried to turn the Republican audience against Trump by saying he goes against conservative ideology. "Mr. Trump, it’s not just your past support for single-payer health care. You’ve also supported a host of other liberal policies." It didn't work. Following the debate Trump's support among Republicans surged.

For decades that Republican Party has run a game in which they get votes by feeding "red meat" to "the base" and then, once in office, pass tax cuts for the rich and grant favors for giant corporations while cutting the things government does to make people's lives better. They offered weak cover stories to justify this economic assault on 99 percent of us, like "tax cuts increase government revenue," "government takes money out of the economy," "corporations making decisions is better than government making decisions," "giving money to billionaires increases jobs."

Meanwhile the things they promised the base (based on racism, nativism, theocracy) were never actually enacted because they needed to be kept around as red-meat issues for the next election. A significant portion of the Republican electorate finally got fed up with being played.

So along comes Trump, challenging this corporate-conservative orthodoxy on economic issues while still brandishing many of the red-meat policies on social issues the Republican establishment has used to get the votes. Trump is exposing that the Republican base is not as locked into the conservative dogma of trickle-down, austerity economics as the Republicans establishment leadership would have us believe.

Trump goes where the base has been trained to go, combined with obvious popular positions. And he is able to do this because he's able to self-fund his campaign.

Trump doesn’t offer actual solutions. He says, "I'll just do it." He says "I'm rich." (See inside some of his mansions here.) He says of his competitors, "They're all stupid."

Trump's basic message is, "I’ll make the trains run on time." This sounds great compared to the rest of them, who say, "I'll destroy the government, launch endless wars, deny basic scientific and economic facts and give everything of value to a few billionaires." Who would have thought there could be a gathering that makes Donald "if Ivanka Weren’t My Daughter, Perhaps I’d Be Dating Her" Trump look good. We'll see how this holds up at Wednesday's 2nd Republican debate.

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